Title: Somanatha – The Many
Voices of a History
Author: Romila Thapar
Publisher: Penguin, 2008 (First published 2004)
ISBN: 978-0-14-306468-8
Pages: 233
Romila Thapar is one of the
leading historians of India with a leftist leaning. A learned scholar of
ancient India, she has authored many books such as Ashoka and the Decline of
the Mauryas, Ancient Indian Social History and Sakuntala: Texts,
Readings, Histories. In this enlightening work, she uncovers various
aspects of a historical incident which colours the imaginations of millions of
people even in today’s India and conspires to define their attitude to a
section of the society which profess a different religion from their own. The
temple at Somanatha in Gujarat was raided in 1026 CE by Mahmud, the king of
Ghazni in today’s Afghanistan. The incident truly ushered in an era of
invasions from central Asia which lasted for half a millennium until Babur’s in
1526. India went under Islamic rule till it was overthrown by the British.
Mahmud not only destroyed and plundered the temple, he desecrated it, reneged
on his promise to return the idol in exchange of money, carried it off to
Ghazni where he smashed it to pieces and placed them on the footpaths leading
to the central mosque and the market place so that the faithful could tread on
them while going in for worship or doing a mundane commercial transaction.
Historians traditionally claimed this event to be the crucial moment which
redefined the relations between Hindus and Muslims in a damaging way and that
it created a trauma on Hinduism which persist even today. Thapar negates all
such allegations which rest on mono-causal reasons, stating that religion was
only one of the factors which drove kings and conquerors on each other’s
throats. In an interesting book born out of immense research based on sources
spanning centuries, crossing geographical boundaries and transcending the
bounds of language, the author has brought out her sharp assessment of history
in a convincing light. However, we still get to know that the temple was sacked
serially by Ulugh Khan (1299), Muzaffar Khan (1395), Zafar Khan (1398) and
Mahmud Begada (1469).
The Shiva temple at Somanatha was
known as Prabhasa Pattana in ancient times and was a prominent place of
pilgrimage. The local chieftains and their Chalukya overlords financed the
temple through munificence. Prabhasa was also a trading port which had
extensive commercial transactions with the Middle East and south east Asia. The
author surmises that the temple also took part in trade and it flourished as a
consequence. Gujarat acted as the hub of maritime trade. Textiles, spices and
jewels were exported and wine, horses and metals formed the import.
Inscriptions from the period after the invasion of Mahmud shows that trade
continued to provide the mainstay of local economy. The temple lost its sheen
by the 15th century when trade dwindled due to the development of
overland trade routes to Persia and Arabia and the direct maritime commerce
between south east Asia and Arabia in spices, eliminating Indian middlemen.
Thus the author hammers home the point that the temple fell on bad times due to
economic reasons and not due to the plundering raids of Mahmud.
There was a strong religious
factor about Somanatha that had aroused the wily, fanatic temper in Mahmud.
Somanatha, or Somnat was rendered as su-manat in Persian, referring to
the goddess Manat of Arabia who was worshiped along with two other
goddesses Lat and Uzza at Mecca until the Prophet stopped the
practice and ordered destruction of the idols. Manat was worshiped in the form
of an aniconic image of black stone which could have been confused with the
cylindrical form of the lingam, the icon of Somanatha. It was rumoured
that this idol of Manat escaped the searching parties of Prophet Mohammed and
ended up in Gujarat. The narrative presents some interesting glimpses on the
religious life of pre-Islamic Mecca.
Thapar examines inscriptions and
chronicles of the period thoroughly. The Turko-Persian sources eulogize Mahmud
and delights at the humiliating blow inflicted on infidels. Many chroniclers
are mentioned, like Ferishta, Barami and Isami, who weaved an entire structure
of how a model king should behave in similar circumstances. The Sanskrit
sources paint a different picture. Even though the former sources claim that
the temple was desecrated and converted to a mosque, the indigenous sources
maintain that the temple continued to function at least till the end of 15th
century. We also read of a Kadamba king who ruled Goa making a pilgrimage to
Somanatha by the sea route in 1036, ten years after Mahmud’s raid. No mention about
the destruction of the shrine is seen. But again, in 1177, there are references
to a broken idol and how the wife of a king’s minister had the image replaced.
There is also a marked difference between the attitudes towards different
Muslim societies. The Arabs, who conquered Sindh in the 8th century
didn’t harbour territorial ambitions and soon engaged in a mutually prosperous
trade in the western seaboard. Hence Tajiks, as they were called are shown in a
friendly demeanour while the Turks who came from Central Asia, called Turushkas,
Shakas, Mlecchas were the hostile ones who conquered the land. What Thapar
establishes is the fact that the history of the period should be understood as
a struggle between various sections of society rather than as a plain fight
between Hindus and Muslims, which it is often made out to be.
Somanatha stole the limelight in
1842 when the Governor General, Lord Ellenborough ordered his troops in
Afghanistan to bring the gates of Mahmud’s tomb in Ghazni to India. These
gates, made of sandalwood, was thought to be the original gates of Somanatha
temple. Ellenborough intended that his proclamation would stir up Hindu
sentiment in British favour. The gates, when it arrived was found not to be of
Indian craftsmanship which resulted in poor response from Indians. The gates
were then secretly consigned to a strong room in Agra fort. Its antecedents are
still shrouded in mystery. However, the Governor General’s action which
favoured idolatry was criticized in the House of Commons, but the House voted
in his favour. K M Munshi, novelist, historian and politician of the last
century spearheaded a campaign for building a new temple at the site. The
construction began in 1951 and completed in the next year, illuminating the
aspirations of Hindu nationalism which was increasingly becoming more strident.
The book presents a picture of
Mahmud as a parsimonious character who was interested in lining his pocket with
plunder and unwilling to spend it in promoting culture in his court which had its
roots in pastoralism. Al Biruni was brought to the court, but was banished to
India after an altercation with the king. Firdausi, the epic poet of Persia and
the author of Shahnama was also disappointed with Mahmud on his frugality and
wrote satires on him after leaving Ghazni. Mahmud also profited largely from
slave trade. It is said that he captured 53000 prisoners of war after the
campaign of Kannauj and sold them for 2 to 10 dirhams per slave, which was only
a tenth of the price of a horse (p.44).
Romila Thapar takes great pains to
show that bigotry was only a minor constituent of the drive that led Mahmud to
Somanatha. This is a trait followed by historians with Marxist leanings. Just
because they don’t believe in god or follow religion, they are led to postulate
that those twin factors don’t weigh on the choices of others. The author
presents plunder and wealth as the reasons for Mahmud’s iconoclasm, while
legitimacy for their rule is brandished as the critical factor for the
destruction of Hindu places of worship by other sultans. They destroyed the
temples that were sacred for the kings whom they subdued. But when the sultans
turn against Shiites with the same vengeance, the author is at a loss to find a
convincing reason. Religious fanaticism was and still is the foremost reason
for violence in those parts of Afghanistan from which Mahmud originated. This
fact is sadly missing and confirms the formulaic composition of the narrative
according to diktats of ideology.
Indian history is often separated
into three periods, the Hindu, Islamic and British. The centuries
before 1000 CE is classed along with the first, the period between 1000 and
1750 CE in the second and British period comes after 1750. Historians usually
rely on inscriptions, chronicles or other sources in Sanskrit for gleaning
information for the first period, Turko-Persian-Arabic sources for the second
era and English sources for the last. Thapar objects to such unreal
classifications and convincingly brings home the view that sources from other
languages need also to be considered while developing a comprehensive
historiography of the period under study. This is amply demonstrated in
presenting numerous Hindu and Jaina sources side by side to describe the
conditions in post-Mahmudic Somanatha.
The book is recommended.
Rating: 3 Star
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